A YOUNG woman yesterday recalled the chilling moment when Milly Dowler suspect Levi Bellfield allegedly tried to lure her into his car.

Rachel Cowles was walking home from school two weeks before her 12th birthday when the “violent predator” pulled up in a red car, a court heard.

She told the jury: “I remember him saying, ‘Hello, I have just moved in next door. Would you like a lift home?’ ”

The 11-year-old, who was in school uniform with her hair in a ponytail, replied: “No thanks. It’s all right.”

Ms Cowles, now 21, told the Old Bailey: “I was half confused and half wanting to get home and check to see if he was telling the truth.”

She rushed home, told her mother and police were called, the jury heard.

“I felt scared because I suddenly realised the enormity of what had just happened. I was crying,” she said.

The little girl was asked to describe the man who had approached her to police but was so distressed, she could only say: “I don’t know.”

Bellfield, 42, tried to kidnap Ms Cowles in Shepperton, Surrey, on March 20, 2002, the day before he snatched Milly, 13, in nearby Walton-on-Thames and killed her, it is alleged.

The ex-nightclub bouncer denies the charges.

Police did not take a statement from Ms Cowles until three years later after they had established a possible link between Milly’s death and the murder of student Amelie Delagrange, 22, on Twickenham Green, west London.

Police had released CCTV footage of a red car driving in Station Avenue, Walton, on the day Milly vanished just yards from where he and his girlfriend were renting a flat. At the time, Bellfield was driving his girlfriend’s red Daewoo Nexia, the court was told.

Ms Cowles and her mother Diana saw the film on a GMTV news report and contacted police.

A detective took a statement from Ms Cowles, who was then 15, after her mother sent a letter to the Chief Constable.

She recalled the driver of the red car was white, in his 30s or 40s, with a balding, chubby head “sort of round and large”.

He also wore a gold earring in his left ear, the court heard. Bellfield’s girlfriend told police that he often wore gold-hooped earrings at the time.

Milly, also in school uniform with a ponytail, vanished “in the blink of an eye” as she walked home in Walton, the day after the incident with Ms Cowles.

Her naked body was discovered six months later in undergrowth in Yateley Heath Wood, Hampshire.

Bellfield was convicted of the murders of Ms Delagrange in 2004 and Marsha McDonnell, 19, in 2003.

Both young women were battered to death with a blunt instrument.

He was also found guilty of the attempt- ed murder of Kate Sheedy, then 18, by driving over her. The trial continues.

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